Jerry Jackson: Keeping racism alive

So much has been said and written about the battle between Martin and Zimmerman – I don’t think I can add to all the hype.

Jerry Jackson

Just a few weeks ago the news night and day was about the unfortunate death of Travon Martin. If you tried to get any other news from the cable channels, you were out of luck.

So much has been said and written about the battle between Martin and Zimmerman – I don’t think I can add to all the hype, the accusations and the emotions portrayed by many parties.

After this issue has now faded to the background, it remains abundantly clear that the race card is being played stronger than ever by certain purveyors of hate. In fact, certain political leaders and other hangers-on are continuing to make a career of keeping racism alive. If racism doesn’t exist, let’s invent certain phrases, comments or even facts to fit the pattern.

To be specific one of the generals in this devious effort is the insufferable black minister, Mr. Al Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton has a talk show on the extreme liberal television station MSNBC. It is educational to tune into this program just to see and hear how much vitriol and extremism can be put into one program. His constant referral to the whites and their attempt to treat all blacks as slaves is just one example. I’m quite sure my liberal friends and some liberals who wouldn’t want to be classified as my friends would reject the rhetoric used by Mr. Sharpton.

So why do I listen and watch some of this garbage? Because in my opinion we should know the extent of extremism by the loony left, and the character that always jumps to the front when the media tries to invent racism is our old friend Jesse Jackson. He has been discredited so many times it’s comical, but here again this is how he makes his living.

When I worked in Kansas City, at the request of one of our clients, I attended a meeting of PUSH which is one of Jesse’s organizations. It was eye-opening indeed. PUSH was formed to achieve equal opportunities for minorities. But Mr. Jackson doesn’t stop there, he wants favoritism for minorities. He has been successful by putting pressure on large corporations and engaging in a lightly disguised act of extortion.

The good news is there are now a whole cadre of black conservatives who are showing real leadership and making the tactics of Jesse Jackson no longer appealing to so many minorities.

Typical to the type of characters pursued to be followers of Mr. Jackson is adding former Chicago Democrat Congressman Mel Reynolds to the payroll of the RAINBOW/PUSH organization. What can you say about Mr. Reynolds? Actually quite a lot. Reynolds was among the 176 criminals excused in President Clinton’s last minute forgiveness spree.

Mr. Reynolds was not just an ordinary congressional criminal. He established a very low standard of behavior. Before Clinton’s record setting clemency, he was serving a six and a half year federal sentence for wire fraud, bank fraud and lies to the Federal Election Commission. However, he is more notorious for serving five years for having sex with two 15 year old campaign volunteers. Guess the job assigned to him by the Reverend Jackson? You guessed it – youth counselor. Is this a great country, or what?

For all these goings on most of the media is complicit in these endeavors. Back to the Trevon Martin case, our liberal friends invented the term “White Latino” to describe Mr. Zimmerman. It was an obvious ploy to present a white killing a black. If you are half Latino, isn’t that enough? Why don’t we call our president who had a white mother a white African American?

For those insistent about playing the race card, a recent event at the Missouri State Fair is typical. It seems a rodeo clown, who has a dangerous job of protecting thrown riders from cantankerous bulls, donned an Obama mask while performing his clown actions.

The Washington Post and The New York Times went nuts. These reporters had obviously never been to a rodeo. To have a clown with an Obama mask was open and purposeful racism. Finally one Eastern paper did a little research and found that it was common practice for rodeo clowns to wear masks of politicians and famous people.

But never mind – the Missouri Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Senator McCaskill got involved and the clown and director of rodeo activities lost their jobs over this. To say this was a bit of overreaction is an understatement.

Recently Oprah Winfrey was shopping for a handbag in Switzerland. According to Oprah the clerk tried to talk her out of buying a $38,000 handbag. Reportedly she told Oprah this particular bag was too expensive. Even Oprah wasn’t sure racism was a factor, but her interviews certainly implied as such. It is possible her casual dress and ample proportions misled the clerk to make her unfortunate comments.

With the Oprah incident and so many other situations, those characters who make a living keeping racism alive keep all of us from making progress in human relations.